An East End Remembrance
Yesterday, Contributing Photographer Colin O’Brien & I joined the pupils of Morpeth School at the Alderney, Britain’s oldest Ashkenazi cemetery, for a remembrance upon the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. Around thirty senior pupils walked over from Bethnal Green to the cemetery for a modest service. Standing quietly in a semi-circle, they listened while a fellow student who had visited the camp recently gave a bare historical account of what took place there. Then four others read out survivors’ testimonies and there was a minute’s silence followed by the lighting of candles.
It was a group that was mixed in creed and race, yet united in respect as demonstrated by their uniformly subdued demeanour. In the minute’s silence, I looked around at the pupils standing in the January sunshine among the stillness of the tombs in this most ancient of graveyards. It was a welcome moment of peace upon an anniversary that only resonates more painfully in the light of recent violence in Europe.
Photographs copyright © Colin O’Brien
You may like to read more about Jewish Cemeteries in the East End
l’chaim.
thank you to the children for their love and respect.
I pray that this example of youngtsters will spread to all sectors of the British people so that none should be afraid to walk the streets and all can offer thanks in peace.
Melvyn Brooks. Karkur Israel.
Well done
“He who has courage and faith will never perish in misery!”
ANNE FRANK
Love & Peace
ACHIM
This is an incredibly powerful and moving post – a “still, small voice” in the middle of so much ugly noise. The pictures and the story speak for themselves (very powerfully). Thank you, and thanks to the school.
Let there be many more meetings of different faiths and cultures so
that we can fight bigotry and hate to others. We have street parties
when there is a royal occasion to celebrate why not do the same
in order to bring people from all cultures together so that they
can learn that “they” are just like us under the skin.
How very touching and wonderful,
In our troubled times it is even more important to display tolerance, acceptance and remembrance. This occasion touched all of those.
Carry on with your wonderful blog.
Thank you for the recognition, it was a pleasure to be a part of this act of memorial.
Hope looms large. God bless.